In February, Microsoft released the initial public preview version of the Hybrid Agent. The purpose of the Hybrid Agent, also branded as the “Exchange Modern Hybrid Topology”, is to simplify the process of setting up and deploying Microsoft Exchange Hybrid for Exchange 2010 and later deployments, where full “classic” Exchange Hybrid is not an option.

It can also address scenarios where deploying the Hybrid Agent would satisfy organizational migration requirements. For example, moving mailboxes between Exchange Online and Exchange on-premises while providing rich-coexistence features, but without requiring (re)configuration of the publishing of Exchange services. Other functionality the Hybrid Agent doesn’t offer is mail transport. Future builds of the Hybrid Agent might introduce cross-premises functionality, such as Send As delegations as demonstrated at Microsoft Ignite last year.

This week, the Hybrid Agent Public reached General Availability status. In the following article for ENow, I discuss the major changes in the agent since the initial Preview release.

Read the full article on the ENow Software blog.